Power lunch with Alistair Buchanan

Alistair Buchanan, head of the UK’s electricity and gas regulator was our Power Lunch guest this week.

Nice man, and he answered all our questions fully and frankly. But I still think he should pull his finger out. When electricity was privatized, it took a while to build up competition. Then for a while, competition was very active. But is it now? I don’t think so, and neither did some of our experts round the table.

Too many political issues I guess. Government’s desire to be seen to ‘do’ something – on insulating ourselves from Putin’s gas, carbon reduction, more cuddly windfarms, ‘sustainability’ – has given us an energy market driven by rules, not competition.

Meanwhile, if you really want to make money in this sector, don’t try to generate electricity cheaply. Build a wind farm and pocket the subsidies.